Friday, February 24, 2012

The Week in Pictures

Chris arrived back in Minnesota early this morning from yet another business trip. We do ok when he's gone, but I am so happy he's home now for the next couple of weeks. Being a solo parent is hard work, but it's also sort of lonely and hard to get motivated to do any more than maintain status quo.

Anyway, it wasn't a particularly inspiring week but I got some share-worthy shots. Not sure what's going on with the quality in some...they are all from my phone. It's been pretty gray and grim outside this week so perhaps a lack of natural light.

You know what's a great idea when your partner is out of town? Starting a sizeable home improvement project (no, not really, it's a terrible idea). I blogged before about the new play room I am creating for the kids, and job #1 was to paint it. I made a couple of distressing discoveries in the course of getting the first coat of paint on:

1) Behind one of the outlet covers was a collection of five or maybe six dead spiders. I...do not do spiders. Dead or alive. When I first discovered them, I literally had to leave the room and do some deep breathing. Unfortunately my go-to Dead Bug Getter was out of town so I had to deal with them if I wanted to carry on with the project. I worked up the courage to go in there with the dusbuster and try to just suck them up as quickly as possible. When I tried to execute a quick suck-em-and-run move though, they were...oh god, I don't know, they were stuck or something. The dustbuster couldn't budge them. Again, I didn't want to cease forward progress til Chris got home over some stupid dead spiders so I did what any sane person would do. Stuck several layers of painters tape over the open outlet. You know, so they couldn't come back to life and crawl out and onto me (hey, I never said it was rational). Since I didn't have to look at them I was able to quickly do my cutting in around the area and carry on. I couldn't bring myself to remove the air vent covers on that wall though, for fear of what I might find in those. Ugh. They sucked to paint around.

2) There is a lot more wall space in that room than I thought. I used almost 3/4 of the single gallon I bought on just the first coat and it took me three days to get it done. Now I have to go back to Home Depot and get another gallon and spend another three days putting on the second coat, which everyone knows sucks more than the first coat because you don't have the satisfaction of seeing flat gray builder's paint getting covered up. Oh, and then I'm doing some detail painting. In a room that, more likely than not, my kids will only use to store their toys because they prefer to play out in the main family room area.

But I did let them each have a go with the paintbrush which they are still talking about two days later. Definitely the highlight of their weeks.

I have yet to teach her proper brush-holding
techniques.

B's masterpiece

P grabbed the brush and went to work

He hasn't yet learned that if you're going to
graffiti something, best not to leave your
signature (but seriously, how awesome that
he casually just wrote his name!!)

I try to send Chris pictures and little videos of the kids when he is gone for more than a day or two. They will sort of talk to him on the phone, but they're still hard to understand so it's easier to make videos and snap pics of what we're up to so he feels connected. I got this one of Pacey building with blocks. He's just recently started building actual structures with blocks...pretty cool to see that developing.

Brighton likes to sit at our dining room window and look for birds (we get quite a few cardinals out in the trees in the winter). Anyway, the other morning she saw a squirrel right at the top of one of the trees and thought it was just the funniest thing ever. Every morning now she goes to look for "my squirrel," and if she doesn't see it we have to make up a story about where the squirrel is and what it might be doing.

Yesterday after we picked up Pacey from school I took the kids to get an ice cream cone. Pacey branched out and insisted on trying chocolate. I think he liked it.

Then we went to Target across the street where the kids lost their ever-loving minds and very, very nearly got left in the parking lot. What's that you say? Maybe it wasn't a good idea to amp them up on sugar and then confine them together in a small space while I perused bargains? Huh...

And finally, a picture snapped at 6:45 this morning. It might make you hate me, but on a normal morning my kids stay in their rooms until we actually go up and get them around 7:30 to 8:00. Brighton has been in a big girl bed for months now and has never once come out of her room on her own. This morning I was having a cup of coffee and reading a book in bed when I heard a little voice from upstairs. I went up and Brighton was at her door, peeking out and letting me know with some urgency that she required assistance putting her baby's hat back on her head. At 6:45 am. Needless to say, the day got an earlier start than usual and so we all watched a couple of episodes of Go Diego Go and had some snuggle time. Not a terrible way to start a Friday.

We have a busy, busy weekend planned so I should have some good material for next week. Happy weekend, everyone!

About Me

I'm a 32-year-old introvert, a classic middle child, hater of conflict and lover of candy. In the past 10 years I've lived in Alaska, California, England and Minnesota. I imported my husband from England and we've spent an eventful decade together. We have two very different but equally wonderful kids: Pacey, born in November of 2006 and Brighton, born in May of 2009. I worked full-time in the insurance industry until the summer of 2010, when I traded that job in for one with pretty crappy pay but some awesome fringe benefits. I'm a much bigger fan of my thirties than my twenties.